Academics

@ElizaBTweetin: June 3, 1873: Whitinsville, MA

Posted on June 2, 2014

Eliza B. Wheaton visited her family in Uxbridge in early June 1873. Her train ticket from Providence to Uxbridge cost $.85, her lunch a whopping $.15, and she gave $.40 to the porter. On the way back, she paid $.80 for lunch and gave only $.15 to the porter. Perhaps she brought gifts whenever she visited her “blessed friends”.

"The Shop" in Whitinsville, MA

Mrs. Wheaton and her sister Mary drove to Whitinsville, an industrial section of Northbridge, on the 3rd. This village on the Mumford River, a tributary to the Blackstone, would become famous for the textile machinery produced at the Whitin Machine Works, established in 1831. "The Shop" built picking, carding and spinning machines used for cotton and woolen textiles all over the world, until it closed in the 1970s. The Whitin family ultimately owned four mills in the Northbridge-Uxbridge-Hopedale area, attracting many Irish immigrants to the area.

Whitinsville Brick Mill Forge

You can still see the town as Mrs. Wheaton saw it. Whitinsville has been designated as having national historic significance within the Blackstone River Valley National Historic Corridor.